Ways to use technology (and even Web 2.0) to collaborate to better serve patients: a list of articles freely available for reading

A scientific collaboration tool built on the facebook platform.

AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008;:41-5

Authors: Bedrick SD, Sittig DF

We describe an application ("Medline Publications")written for the Facebook platform that allows users to maintain and publish a list of their own Medline-indexed publications, as well as easily access their contacts lists. The system is semi-automatic in that it interfaces directly with the National Library of Medicine's PubMed database to find and retrieve citation data. Furthermore, the system has the capability to present the user with sets of other users with similar publication profiles. As of July 2008,Medline Publications has attracted approximately 759 users, 624 of which have listed a total of 5,193 unique publications.

PMID: 18999247 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Web screening of US nursing homes by location and quality.

AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008;:576-80

Authors: Pearson G, Gill M, Thoma G

To assist American families who will one day need to find a nursing home for a loved one, NLM is developing a Web 2.0 interface to important evaluative information about nursing homes in the US. Currently in prototype form, our Nursing Home Screener locates homes on a Google Map. It allows nursing home quality, indicated by map icons, to be surveyed in any of four major categories: staffing, fire safety deficiencies, healthcare deficiencies, and quality of care inferred from residents health. Within each category, options can be tailored to user preferences. Furthermore, home attributes can be used to selectively hide home markers of less interest. The goal is to offer the public a timely, easy to use site for the rapid location and comparison of nursing homes, thus identifying those worth further review or a personal visit.

PMID: 18998890 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

A prototype system to support evidence-based practice.

AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008;:151-5

Authors: Demner-Fushman D, Seckman C, Fisher C, Hauser SE, Clayton J, Thoma GR

Translating evidence into clinical practice is a complex process that depends on the availability of evidence, the environment into which the research evidence is translated, and the system that facilitates the translation. This paper presents InfoBot, a system designed for automatic delivery of patient-specific information from evidence-based resources. A prototype system has been implemented to support development of individualized patient care plans. The prototype explores possibilities to automatically extract patients problems from the interdisciplinary team notes and query evidence-based resources using the extracted terms. Using 4,335 de-identified interdisciplinary team notes for 525 patients, the system automatically extracted biomedical terminology from 4,219 notes and linked resources to 260 patient records. Sixty of those records (15 each for Pediatrics, Oncology & Hematology, Medical & Surgical, and Behavioral Health units) have been selected for an ongoing evaluation of the quality of automatically proactively delivered evidence and its usefulness in development of care plans.

PMID: 18998835 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

These are all in PubMedCentral, NLM's FREE depository of articles.